Each year ~335,000 new families are affected by congenital heart disease across Africa.

Help Us Change Lives

Together we can provide more heart surgeries for Africa’s children.

The Children’s Cardiac Foundation of Africa

The Children’s Cardiac Foundation of Africa saves lives and improves the health of children with congenital heart disease in Africa. We do this by raising funds for heart surgeries and by training specialists and support staff in the field of paediatric cardiac care.

Surgical Program: South Africa

Our model is a public-private collaborative initiative to extend modern paediatric cardiac care to the continent. We utilise excess capacity in a private unit to facilitate surgery for indigent patients who otherwise would have to wait for access to care in a state facility.
National waiting lists for paediatric cardiac surgery are currently estimated in excess of 3,000 patients. We aim to reduce the number of children on surgical waiting lists to less than 100 nationally by 2025.

Surgical Program: Rest of Africa

As a South African based organisation, we understand the unique healthcare challenges Africa faces.
With this in mind, the Program affords African governments the opportunity to access world-class paediatric cardiac facilities in South Africa, either free of charge or at significantly subsidised rates.

Training Program: Africa

Africa’s slow progress in the diagnosis and effective treatment of congenital heart disease in children led us to design a training program which focuses on paediatric cardiac care. Led by Prof. Rob Kinsley, the Program launches later this year and is open to African nationals, presently working on the African continent in the medical field.

The Children’s Cardiac Foundation of Africa 2021 Targets

We aim to meet the following targets by 28 February 2021, which marks two years since the Foundation’s first surgery on 7-year-old, Ghanaian national, Zahara. Progress against targets are updated on the site bi-annually, with the first update expected on 15 September 2019.

Surgical Beneficiaries

Number of children receiving heart surgery through the Foundation’s Surgical Programs. *Number of procedures will be shown separately.